Revit Technology Conference is upon us...Sign up today!

The Revit Technology Conference for North America is fast approaching, and Washington, DC will never be the same. RTC is a mini "AU" conference that focuses strictly Revit and its associated programs. This really helps the user get focused on the tasks we need to improve on, and gain more efficiency when using the tools.

The event, scheduled for July 23nd-25th at the Crystal Gateway Marriott, and includes some awesome speakers, including Paul Aubin, Jim Balding, Jason Boehning (one of my co-authors at CADLearning), Don Bokmiller, Matt Murphy, Brian and Desiree Mackey, Kate Morrical, Marcello Sgambelluri, Beau Turner and a whole lot more...that I'm humbled to be a part of.

So here's what I'll be covering, in a lab on Friday morning. We're going to review some advanced Revit family editing tips, focusing on the MEP side of things, but are also applicable to other disciplines as well. We'll spend time reviewing nested families on a rotational basis, as well as 2D annotations. We'll also cover key shared parameters and how to edit vendor content to clean this data up, and manage it as well. Time permitting, we'll show a few tools you can use to help you manage your content more effectively, and cut down on project production time.

There's a lot of great classes that I'm really excited to be attending, and hope you'll be able to join us. sign up early and often, and we'll see you there!

Getting STEAMED about Training...on Autodesk Products

I've been riding the high horse about training for years. but one of my biggest complaints was that the education community wasn't keeping up with the technology. I know, it's tough...usually they move at the speed of government...

While I was cruising around looking for some online materials about energy analysis and simulation for the 2014 release (here's a great link, by the way - http://autodesk.typepad.com/bpa/2013/03/advanced-energy-analysis-with-green-building-studio-doe2-and-energyplus-support.html), I came across the Autodesk Digital STEAM Workshop.

This site is gear towards the Education community, and demonstrates how new technology, from AutoCAD to Revit, Inventor, Maya and 3D studio, can be integrated into a core curriculum from the high school level and beyond. It works in 3 levels:

- Level 1 provides the overview of working in a 3D world, reviews the industry and careers, and the relevant Autodesk software. Other resources cover emerging technology and packages such as Mudbox, Sketchbook, and videos on design and teaching. A section on sustainability covers what this means from the industry side, so students gain perspective and common sense on the importance of designing smart. A list of core competencies is included, so the instructor and student know what to expect, and what's important to understand in the software packages. Certification and skills testing is also provided in this level

- Level 2 gets into the expectations of the course, providing project examples that are sorted by software, subject, difficulty and time. By providing real-world project examples, the students and instructors get an idea of the effort involved, and the endgame results.

- Level 3 is the meat of the course. The students can produce their own projects, from a 30 hour individual project to a 90 hour team project. Putting real-world examples and work in front of the users is critical to retention.

The beauty of this is that it provides education institutions that are still mired in providing board drafting, basic  AutoCAD, or 3D modeling training on packages that are most likely not related to what the student will use in the real world, a clear path forward using the most widely recognized design tools. It's a shame that some schools refuse to do this - for example, one of my former schools still only offers Solidworks training for the engineering curriculum, including civil, mechanical, electrical and other programs that focus on building design.

So check out this website: http://curriculum.autodesk.com/student/public/index/index, and see what you think. If you want to position your students to have the greatest likelihood of getting a job, and be prepared to use the most common tools, then start here...

thanks - David B.

A few shameless plugs...for AU 2012!

I gotta love our marketing people...they've really been grabbing on to social media and getting ourselves known for being thought leaders in the BIM arena.

So they put together a little highlight reel for the classes I'm teaching at AU this year, showing a few of the projects we've worked on in Revit, along with a few pics from previous classes...check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNBJzEG0ThM

Here's the list of classes I'm doing this year - in case you missed it:

 

Class ID: MP1414
Class Title: Revit MEP 2013 - On Steroids!
Wednesday - 10:00am

Class ID: MP1461
Class Title: You did WHAT? Revit MEP and AutoCAD P&ID? Amazing!
Thursday 1:00pm

PS - for the class above, I'm really excited about this one - we're doing stuff that everybody says we shouldn't be doing - but it's not just about the programming. It's about how we went through the decision and planning process, to come up with a solution that was cost effective for the company while giving us a competitive advantage in our market.

 

Class ID: MP1465-L
Class Title: Fast Content for AutoCAD MEP 2013
Tuesday - 5:30pm 

Class ID: MP1470
Class Title: Supercharge your AutoCAD MEP 2013!
Thursday - 10:00am

Class ID: MP1477-L
Class Title: FASTER Families for Revit MEP!
Thursday - 5:00pm 

Class ID: MP1478-L
Class Title: Perfecting the System for the Revit MEP Project
Wednesday - 8:00am


And you thought I was a geek...see you in Vegas!

later - David B.